May 30, 2016 at 3:21 am

We don’t mark Memorial Day in Canada, but since I’ve learned about the history of this holiday I’ve often thought we should at least adapt some of its customs for use around Remembrance Day in the fall. I think it’s important to think about the graves and memorials to our war dead, and to set aside time not only for their maintenance but to make them look fresh and spiffy.

I come from a military family. Both my parents served in the RCAF, my father for 20 years before he took his release to civilian life. Several of my uncles served in WWII, and I have great-uncles who served in WWI. On my husband’s side, his grandfather was wounded twice during WWII and decorated for bravery. There are a number of notable soldiers to whom he is related more peripherally, as well.

Neither my husband nor I could serve for medical reasons. Instead, I chose to care for war veterans in the years following my high school graduation. Two of our three daughters are army cadets. My oldest has served for close to seven years now, and will age out of the program in the fall. She has worked for the Department of National Defence during her summer vacation, and devoted much time to mentoring the younger cadets. She plans to return to the corps as a civilian instructor, and eventually to apply for her commission as an officer in the Cadet Instructor Cadre – a specialized division of our military reserve forces.

As you might imagine, military occasions and Remembrance Day are a very big deal around our house! The poppy means a great deal to us, as does the service of our many friends who are veterans.

May 30, 2016 at 3:10 am

My children and I have always loved to read Jane Eyre. I also quite liked Little Women by Louisa May Alcott, and in a similar vein the Anne of Green Gables series by Lucy Maud Montgomery.

Other favourite authors of classics would include: Dickens, Mark Twain, and Edith Nesbit, who wrote Five Children and It and The Railway Children. I enjoy classic adventure and satire, as well as social commentary.

May 30, 2016 at 12:44 am

@thinker Thank you so much for explaining what you did! Yes, it may be a WordPress feature, or it could be that the staff have installed a plugin like Embedly. If so, it would be good for @support or @admin to let us know. This is a feature that could really enrich the content of our posts.

I used Embedly on BlogJob, and really loved having that option. I could add visual content so easily by linking to a video or to a news article that had a good image. Having a few quality outgoing links in our posts is good for SEO too 🙂

May 30, 2016 at 12:39 am

So yes, it does work! The key is to place the link on a separate line when writing the comment. Do not put it in a paragraph with other text. It can be pasted or typed in, no matter how it gets added. It just needs to be on its own line.

I think if we can all add our links in this manner when we post them for our writing challenges, it would make them more attractive and help encourage our fellow writers to visit them 🙂

May 30, 2016 at 12:36 am

It worked! I suspect the trick is to be sure the link is on its own separate line, and not part of a paragraph. I’m going to try it again, but this time I am pasting in @scheng1‘s link for this challenge 🙂

http://172.104.9.193/flavor-fragrance-industry/

I’m not skipping many lines, but just putting the link on its own separate line. Let’s see if this works….

May 30, 2016 at 12:33 am

OK, I’m just trying out the method that @thinker used to post a link. It looked like the link had been purposely embedded in the comment, whereas everyone else’s links seem to just hang there as a raw URL.

So here goes! I’m told to type some text and then enter several times before typing the link. I wonder if it matters if I paste or type it? I’m going to type, because this is what the instructions said to do….

http://172.104.9.193/writing-challenge-top-5-favorite-smells/

Now I have typed the link, and hit return a bunch more times. I don’t see anything happening yet with the link, either to show that it’s becoming “hot” or to hint at the actual embedding of the post. I hope this works!

May 30, 2016 at 12:27 am

@scheng1 My oldest is making coffee in an old-fashioned stovetop percolator right now. The whole house smells like coffee! I can’t wait for it to be ready 😀

May 30, 2016 at 12:09 am

@swalia I have just a little over a dollar yet to earn, so I need to submit a bit more and maybe do some more interacting. Right now I am just enjoying a light brunch with my oldest daughter, and then I will get to work in earnest!

May 29, 2016 at 11:53 pm

@grecy095 Zazzle is a print on demand (POD) service that will print everything from t-shirts and coffee mugs, to phone cases, to wedding invitations.

The creator supplies the artwork and sets up a store to sell her creations; she also promotes her products, often in blog posts.

Zazzle takes care of taking orders and processing payments, and they print and ship the product as well. For the service, they take a cut. I still haven’t read up on the way that works yet….

I’m just getting started and don’t have any stores or anything set up, but here’s my profile link:

http://www.zazzle.ca/mbr/238411791698572842

May 29, 2016 at 11:27 pm

Glad to see you back on the site, @grecy095!

Thanks to @support for a prompt response to the problem 🙂

May 29, 2016 at 2:12 pm

My post for this challenge has also published now. It’s got a very simple title, “Writing Challenge: Your Top 5 Favorite Smells.”

May 29, 2016 at 1:57 pm

@support Thanks so much! I will let her know you’re seeing to it.

May 29, 2016 at 11:36 am

@scheng1 I envy you! A lot of the 24-hour services in Montreal had been cut off because of crime. But there were still a few delivery services, and we loved to order late at night. We were night owls, and hubby often worked until after midnight. So we appreciated being able to order a nice brochette or a pizza, or even just hot dogs, at a time that for us was like the dinner hour.

May 29, 2016 at 10:40 am

@sunil That does seem very inappropriate for the admin to make such a show of displaying your post under a category of “rejected.” I would not likely want to continue writing for such a site…

May 29, 2016 at 10:37 am

@scheng1 I think if my husband had ever tried to confiscate my phone while in hospital, he’d have been sleeping in the doghouse! Really, when you’re in hospital it’s very boring. And sometimes if you have to wake up at 2 am to feed the baby, it’s easier to get back to sleep afterwards if there is something to do….